urbanSTL

I expected opposition from white conservatives in the farther reaches of the County, but I'm surprised at how many of my "Southside Progressive" friends are vehemently opposed to any merger. Part of it stems from a blind, knee-jerk hatred of All Things Rex, but beyond that, I just don't get it.

When the merger happens, Chesterfield homeowners will be big winners, I compute. St. Louis metro average home value is next to lowest of the top 25 metros, lower than all but Detroit metro. St. Louis metro average home value is $166,500 per Zillow.

With the better rankings, new pro-active metro reputation, and new efficiencies from merging, I expect St. Louis metro average home values to move up to at least the average of these nearby 12 big metros -- KC, Nashville, Minneapolis, Indy, Chicago, Louisville, Dallas, Denver, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Detroit and Cincinnati of $211,200. (Low is Cleveland at $145.0K, the high is Denver at $403.6K)

There are about 1.1 million households in the St. Louis metro area. So if the average went up by $44,800, ($211,200 - $166,500) -- to the 12 city average -- it will add $47.7 Billion in wealth to St. Louis metro area homeowners. The average home would go up in value by 27%. (44,800/166,500)

Zillow says the average home value in Chesterfield is $388,600. If the Chesterfield average goes up the same per cent as the metro average, up to the 12 nearby metros average, it would rise 27% or $104,500 up to an average of $493,009 per Chesterfield home.

There are 19,280 occupied homes in Chesterfield, per city-data.com. So home ownership wealth in Chesterfield would go up by $2.014 Billion. ($104,500 * 19,280).

Of course, these increases would happen across the metro area including St. Charles and East Side. So Chesterfield could argue that if they can get the rest of St. Louis City and County to merge, their wealth would go up whether they were included in the merger or not. Somehow they need the metro area reputation and rankings to improve either way.

I find those home numbers a little low from Zillow. True, there is a heavy anchor of very low end homes where not many people would actually want to live. When you look at areas people would choose to live those numbers double or triple the "average" quickly. Here's an average of what's on the market now: https://www.stlouisrealestatesearch.com ... #gsc.tab=0

I get your point, and agree a better perception pays dividends in so many ways.

Your link gives average listing price of homes currently for sale in Chesterfield. My Zillow link is current average home value, which of course will be less than unsold home asking prices. Here is my link: https://www.zillow.com/chesterfield-mo/home-values/

framer wrote: ↑

Jan 30, 2019

I expected opposition from white conservatives in the farther reaches of the County, but I'm surprised at how many of my "Southside Progressive" friends are vehemently opposed to any merger. Part of it stems from a blind, knee-jerk hatred of All Things Rex, but beyond that, I just don't get it.

Well you know the saying, "If you run into an ***hole in the morning, you ran into an ***hole. If you run into ***holes all day, you're the ***hole."

Of course, I could say it the other way and it bounces right back: I figured a lot of conservatives would vote for anything Rex, but I'm also surprised at how many suburban progressives are falling for Rex and the entrenched Democratic politicians he's bought with big promises of appointments, higher salaries, and more jobs.

I was attempting to explain Chesterfield to some friends of mine outside of the region and here is what I came up with:

If the pack of feudal lords in St. Louis County have a robber baron to rule them all, it is Chesterfield. This isn't the first time Chesterfield has floated leaving St. Louis County, though previously it has been related to how unfairly they feel like that are treated in the County sales tax sharing scheme. You see, when the scheme was passed, there was nothing in the Chesterfield Valley, it being mostly undeveloped land in the Missouri River floodplain, and indeed, in 1993, the Monarch levee that protects the Valley burst and the whole area was inundated under several feet of water.

Now, after this horrible tragedy, it was decided that this could Never Be Allowed to Happen Again and a new Monarch levee was commissioned, funded by federal funds collected from the rest of St. Louis, County and City, so that our doctors would no longer have their basements flood. In the now protected flood plain Chesterfield undertook a massive building spree, throwing up billions in retail and offices that are just west of the major population centers of the upper middle class in western St. Louis County, luring away retailers from elsewhere in the region with incentives. And they are mad that they have to SHARE their sales tax money from their ill gotten gains. The building has been so excessive that two outlet malls were recently constructed, which so oversaturated the market that Chesterfield Mall, previously worth in the tens of millions, is at 10% occupancy and is seeking to be redeveloped with what I am sure will be considerable taxpayer subsidies.

I'm not in this for simply better stats, but I don';t see how StL being perennially ranked murder capital etc helps us lower crime.
I do see how reallocating policing recourse from propping-up insolvent munis to public safety could.

I can't get past the financials and the political structure. How is it possibly a good thing that we lose more than a third of our income and still have to meet all our obligations? Where does the revenue come from? What's the structure? What taxes can we raise? (All of which will have to be inside the present city limits if I read this right.) The plan very definitely does not answer that question. And for this we get . . . what? Better stats? Maybe a more uniform code of development so a few municipalities in the exurbs can no longer pirate commercial business from the middle ring suburbs against which they're competing? We don't even get to vote by ourselves for our own mayor. Every municipality in the county will keep its own government, but ours gets rolled into what amounts to an expanded county council. That doesn't feel like a knee jerk reaction to me. It feels like a valid worry that my taxes are going to go through the roof and I'm going to get nothing for it. And my vote will matter less, while people with more who neither live here nor want to will get more say over my city. I'm all in favor of paying my share. But I'd like to have a say. I'd like it to actually DO something.

Maybe part of it is that those of us who actually live in the city have voted with our feet already, clearly demonstrating that we don't think the stats are as important as other things. It's not some magic formula. I really don't see how this affects anything for city dwellers in a positive way save our reputation, and I can easily see some very big potential downsides. Sure, it will fix the stat problem. But is it worth that? It's not going to fund the forestry department. It's not going to hire more or better teachers for the schools. It's not going to convince parents from Crestwood that their darling children should really be at Roosevelt and not assimilated into the Lind-Borg. I'm not convinced. And since I'm not convinced I will plan to vote no until I am convinced. I'm not opposed to all possible mergers. Just this one. There are too many unknowns. Too much to be decided too quickly by people over whom I get no vote, who aren't answerable to me. For what it's worth, I've actually argued this stuff with certain heavyweights over beer. (Many times in one particular case.) I don't hate them. They're not bad people. I just . . . disagree with them.

But I'll still sit down and have a beer anytime. Or lose a game of chess. Or listen to a mediocre string quartet. It's all cool. But for present I'm voting no. This is just too important for some goofball experiment. And the numbers really need to be much better. For St. Louis. The city. Chesterfield Notinmycounty County might come out like a rose, but the city does not.

Trololzilla wrote:

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jan 31, 2019

It's not going to convince parents from Crestwood that their darling children should really be at Roosevelt and not assimilated into the Lind-Borg.

Is this really the outside impression that my alma mater gives people in St. Louis? Not that I necessarily disagree, I've just never heard the district referred to like that and I find it rather amusing

I'm still a 'No' on this, for many of the same reasons that SP articulated above. I'm fully in favor of a merger - I just don't think that this is the right one for the region though.

I . . . uh . . . If you ask the inevitable question I might possibly be obliged to answer whether or not I might possibly have attended such an institution. There were good people there (doubtless still are), but my years there were . . . not terribly pleasant ones. Nerds were not so popular in the eighties and early nineties. I still have a couple of friends from those days, but I don't anticipate attending a reunion.

I also have something a bad habit of sending up schools I've actually attended. It's usually light hearted (basketball Tiggers love to bounce) but I can get touchy when I'm in an off mood. (Don't ask me to sing the Missouri alma mater unless you have a decent sense of humor about the whole thing. Having worked for the athletic department for enough years I surely know the darn thing, but I can't ever seem to use the right words.)

Anyway, it felt illustrative. There's a reason my parents moved and my casual naughtiness fell on Lindy-Borg. My county mother won the debate with my city father. (His alma matter's closed now anyway. Like so many city institutions.)

All that said, I would never hold anyone's school against them. Save my own against me, that is. Most of us didn't have a whole lot of choice in the operation until rather later.

https://callnewspapers.com/county-citie ... ther-plan/

So I guess this is the alternative. It just seems like anything a Board of Freeholders would come up with would be half measures that don't really have the impact a reunification plan will need to be successful. (Also the whole bit about not wanting to use the word "together" makes me doubt their motivations.)

I think this is a great step forward but as some of you mentioned there are some issues.

-Finances of the city
-Getting rid of munis

They need to go into detail on how the finances will work. I am pro getting rid of the 1% income tax at least on businesses because it hinders attracting companies but we need to see how the current city would be financial solvent. I assume services and poverty would be spread out to lessen the burden on the core. I actually need to go through the city budget to see where they spend all their money.

The whole point is to eliminate waste, so why are they keeping the current muni system and adding another layer on top of that? Maybe they are trying to sell the idea to the little fiefdoms to get them on board then phase out the muni system over time.

There's a nice thumbnail of the city's budget on the Comptroller's site. (Along with all the more detailed ones.)

Well worth a glance. And I apologize. The Earning's Tax isn't 35% of the city's revenue, but of the General Fund, which only represents 46% of total appropriations. So overall it's closer to 16%, but it's still the single largest piece of the $1.1 billion dollar pie. Not too surprisingly, the largest outlay seems to be public safety. (Which represents about half of General Fund expenses.) I'd guess the lion's share of that is Metro PD. Anyway, it's all there and well worth digging through yourself. Complicated and tricksy stuff, what with the way everything is broken into six different funds and funding for everything comes from six different sources. But anytime you get a budget that large with that much history behind the way money goes in and what you can do with it things get really dang complicated. "I'll give you this, but only if you use it this way." . . . "I'll vote for that so long as it's used for this." You can't win. I'm getting a very small taste of it in a modest 501c3 budget as we speak.

Per the plan listed a few services would be spread out, but not education or fire protection. Not sure why poverty would be spread out. I expect it will remain concentrated in the urban core for the simple reason that if you're poor access to transportation and services is absolutely key and that's concentrated in the urban core for simple physical reasons that are hard to overcome. It would take a fairly big incentive to overcome that. Police protection could be spread out, but I'm not sure what that achieves. The city already spends less per officer than the county, and yet manages to maintain an equally if not more professional force. (Both departments have issues, but I see no evidence the issues are less in the county.) Maybe there's something I'm missing there, but it looks to me like the good comes from eliminating the small municipal PDs, not consolidating Metro and County.

I suppose things like the DoH, streets, and forestry will be combined and that might help a little. But . . . given how spread out the county is I'm not even sure of that. As long as obligations remain tied to the same pieces of land their tied to now what we really need is something to change the density so we can provide services more efficiently, not something to whitewash a few statistics and wipe away local control in the only place in the entire region to potentially be efficient.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jan 30, 2019

Metro PD (already more efficient and effective than any other PD in the region) will be rolled in with county PD

SP - Usually I agree w/ your opinions, I'm curious on this one though. You feel the SLMPD is the most efficient and effective in the region? Hmmm.... One of the biggest challenges I think the SLMPD has is the pay level. It's among the lowest paid. Seems a no brainer you're going to get the lower performers, less professional employees. I think eliminating the pay discrepancy would be a huge win.

The merger proposal is definitely worth supporting as long as it eliminates the tax competition between City and County which is probably the single most important factor that reduces the size of the total pie for the region. Just eliminating this will hopefully result in an increase of the tax base, everything else constant.

I think realistically all you can do is ask that people read it before responding. If they don't support it, they don't support it. Two items unfortunately may sink this thing - 1.) involving Rex whose name has basically become toxic when it comes to political agendas and 2.) pushing the state vote out of the box. That element put people on the defensive immediately as it has the feeling of trying to backdoor the process.

Chesterfield's response is infuriating considering it was a literal swamp 25 years ago and is now convinced it's a major metro area.

The Business Journal had a brief interview with John Lamping, a former state senator who pretty much personified the fear-mongering, knee-jerk reaction crowd. In the intro it says he recently moved to St. Charles County "partly in anticipation of a merger" which is code for "I want to enjoy the spoils of the region while contributing nothing." He then proceeds to say his primary message while campaigning against it is "It's not hard to imagine this could happen to me someday" and then breaks out this gem "If everything stays status quo, Tishaura Jones would be the next mayor of St. Louis. Wesley Bell's election says a lot about the future elections in St. Louis County."

If that's not fear-mongering aimed at west county, I don't know what is.

In the end, if it doesn't pass maybe it nudges the region to make some changes. I'd probably be happy in the short term if the city and county came to some mutual agreement on sharing of sales tax revenue, development planning, TIF's, etc. to at least make sure both sides are working for the betterment of the region. There may be enough residents in the have-not areas to support that. Certainly would help if the county made a coordinated effort to begin consolidating some of the smaller munis that have no business operating on their own.

I think I'll end up voting yes. Obviously the proposal is not perfect and leaves aside probably the most glaring disparity in the region (the schools) but we have an actual opportunity here to undo the Great Divorce and if it is squandered, it may be 20-30 years before it arises again, allowing 20-30 more years of damage from fragmentation and St. Louis' broken politics.

Ebsy wrote: ↑

Feb 02, 2019

I think I'll end up voting yes. Obviously the proposal is not perfect and leaves aside probably the most glaring disparity in the region (the schools) but we have an actual opportunity here to undo the Great Divorce and if it is squandered, it may be 20-30 years before it arises again, allowing 20-30 more years of damage from fragmentation and St. Louis' broken politics.

My main issue with the current proposal is this one exactly, that it does not tackle the fragmentation of the school system directly, and this is the single most important source of long-term inequalities in the region. However, the fact that it contributes to the elimination of redundant public services, and local tax competition will both contribute to greatly reduce public expenditures and raise tax revenues, and these surplus funds will hopefully find their way to the school system.
Alternatively, you can think of this as a first step in future integration of public services. A little bit how a 1951 customs union for coal and steel between France and Germany eventually became an economy, political, and monetary union between 27 countries.

Both the city and the suburbs in the county have lots of deferred infra maintenance. It's hard to know how much nor confront it while fragmented. The cost of running fragmentation crowds out money that could be going to that maintenance.
People have been moving from fragmentation for many decades. Over 60 of the munis in the county have fewer people than in 1970. But for west county being in St. Louis County, it'd have shown consistent declines in population.
Yes, there is risk that the idea that spread-out development is better prevails rather than the opposite. Or maybe being all on the same team means some ownership taking of the region's problems rather than ignoring them thru the luxury of separate munis.

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local ... ng2QOpka3k

Buried in this President of the Board of Aldermen poll is numbers for City-County Merger among Dem Primary voters (pretty close City residents as a whole if we are being realistic): 44% support/approve and 31 oppose, which is a decent place to start for a ballot initiative.

The Mayor wrote: ↑

Feb 04, 2019

^ Did you maybe post the wrong link? That was a story about an ATV shooting lol.

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local ... b3f77c0338

Here is the proper link. Must have been scrolled down too far when I copied it.

https://www.kmov.com/news/st-charles-co ... 47d77.html

Looks like the collar counties will be a place to watch on election day.